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M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Last Airbender' will appeal to entire family (new video)
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The popular Nickelodean animated series, Avatar, the Last Airbender, is being brought to the big screen by none other than M. Night Shyamalan, so you know it’s going to be good. But this time, instead of scaring the audience with a horror-suspense flick, he’s making a movie the whole family can enjoy.
In The Last Airbender the world is divided into four major powers: Water, Earth Air and Fire. A 12-year old boy named Aang (Noah Ringer) is the last Avatar and the only person able to mater all four elements. When Aang befriends a brother and sister, Sokka and Katara, the trio sets out to stop Prince Zuko and the Fire Nation, who plan to enslave all the elemental tribes.
“I knew about the cartoon three years before,” notes Ringer, who plays Aang. “Ever since I’ve been shaving my head, everybody has called me Aang. I watched the show because everybody would tell me, ‘You have to watch this cartoon. He looks just like you!’ The movie is definitely different [from the TV series], but if we would’ve done the same thing as the cartoon, what would be exciting about that? It’s fun to change that and do something new.”
Prince Zuko is played by Patel, his first role since 2009 Best Picture Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire. “Zuko is a boy, and he’s struggling to impress his father and trying to get his honor and love back,” remarks Patel. “And then there’s Shaun Toub, who plays my Uncle, and who treats Zuko like a son. Like in life, you take your anger out on the people you love the most, and Zuko sort of neglects his uncle because he’s on this one-track mission to find this boy. It makes it really interesting. They have a good dynamic: This naïve boy who acts on aggression all of the time, and then you have this wise, older uncle who is like the calm within the storm. It’s a good dynamic.”
iF Magazine recently interview Shyamalan. Following are exerpts from that interview:
iF: Are you going to push for the political tone in this film as we’ve seen in your other films?
Shyamalan: Well, there is a lot in the mythology. What I did was remove anything that was too slap-sticky and cheesy -- the stuff that was there for the very little kids, but wouldn’t work in a live action feature like the fart jokes. I grounded the thing a little more. I grounded Katara’s brother for example [played by Nicola Peltz] and it brought a great new overall tone to the whole movie.
iF: The movie feels a little bit like it was inspired by the art of Hayao Miyazaki?
Shyamalan: Well, I’m a huge and giant fan of his work ... My favorite is Spirited Away. He is amazing, but to be honest, the film was more influenced by martial arts movies in general. What is funny is that you can see so many influences in the cartoon with scenes almost copied entirely from martial art movies, but I wanted the live action film to be truly original with action scenes you had never seen before. I’m a huge martial art freak. I even have a Bruce Lee statue in my office!
iF: What was the biggest challenge for you before and during the making of this film?
Shyamalan: It’s been a great on-going experience both as a director and a human being ... It’s two and half times compared to my other movies. It feels like I’m a student again and I’m learning new things, new tricks and for me this is the way to get a great movie, when you’re a student again. You learn again and you’re open to everything again.
iF: When did you realize, “wow, this is an insane film!”?
Shyamalan: Right away when we were filming in Greenland. It was great filming over there and if I had the all money in the world I would have filmed this movie on location around the world -- but that would be so expensive. It was great shooting in Greenland, in the tundra and to see the actors moving. It felt so real. This is when I realized this was an amazing movie. Also, when I saw the army coming in the village I was overwhelmed by the size and the scope of this film.
Release date: July 2, 2010
Source: Starlog and iF Magazine
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